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We knew it was only a matter of time until this meme turned the spotlight on journalists. [h/t Stuff Journalists Like]

Bonus: TVSpy discovered “Sh*t News Reporters Say.” Compare and contrast.

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The editorial board of New Jersey’s largest newspaper, The (Newark, N.J.) Star-Ledger, has taken to a new story form to express its point of views: the animatorial.

It’s an editorial that’s in animated video form. The result is amusing, hilarious and a surprisingly effective storytelling method.

The production values are pretty corny. It’s cheesy text-to-speech animated figures on a real-life background. But the story (in this case about toll hikes) is told in a way that anyone can understand. It speaks to the viewer more than a traditional text-based editorial would.

For a video to be an effective storytelling tool, it need not have tons of bells and whistles. Instead, it needs to be well-written and understandable. And that’s exactly what these animatorials are. Read more

Finding success on YouTube can often be a difficult thing to do. There are tons of different variables that can make or break your video — whether it’s a 15-secon d clip or something you consider a masterpiece.

Luckily, YouTube itself is here to help. They’ve produced a little-known bible for content creators, the YouTube Creator Playbook.

This is not a playbook for beginners. It includes tips for engagement, uses terms like “tent-pole programming” and gives a detailed look at YouTube’s analytics package. Read more

A few months ago, we gave some tips on how to define your mobile newsroom presence. One of those tips talked about keeping Flash at a minimum for mobile devices:

While there are mobile devices which can run Flash, using Flash should be avoided for both mobile sites and applications. For video, recent studies show that HTML 5 outperforms Flash on mobile devices.

Yesterday, Adobe announced that they will be ceasing development of the mobile version of Flash Player for mobile browsers in order to continue their focus on HTML5. This is huge news for any organization which uses Flash for mobile websites to deliver multimedia content or interactive graphics.

According to Adobe VP Danny Winokur, “HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively. This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms.” While these are strong words from Adobe, it’s important to note that any organization that begins to transition its Flash content to HTML5 must keep two important thoughts in mind.

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In an ever evolving media landscape, it can be challenging to figure out how to present multimedia in a graceful way. And while there can be a lot of lamenting over new media eclipsing more traditional forms of journalism, it can also be used to enhance the time-honored forms of storytelling. This was certainly the case for the New York Times journalist Amy Harmon’s recent piece “Autistic and Seeking a Place in an Adult World.” Harmon, a Pulitzer Prize winner, followed a young man with autism named Justin Canha for a year. She wrote an engaging narrative, delving into the complexities and challenges that Canha, a budding animator/illustrator, faced as he made his way into adulthood.

The Times added another dimension to Harmon’s already captivating account with multimedia “quick links.” These links not only showed Canha’s quirks through video and his talent for drawing, but provided an important facet to understanding his character and experience. It is the perfect example of how multimedia can be used to complement a more traditional piece, the powers of print, photo and video woven into one experience. I spoke to Harmon about the piece, which drew attention from journalists and Silicon Valley types alike. Read more